Federal official to outline what lies ahead after oil spill is sealed
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 29, 2010 11:18 a.m. EDT
New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- Two weeks after the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico was capped and stopped leaking, the man overseeing the federal response to the disaster will meet New Orleans-area parish presidents to outline plans for after the well is permanently sealed.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen is optimistic that steps planned for the coming days will finally, permanently seal the well.
"The relief well, while it is deep, is something that has been done before," Allen said. "The technologies involved here are not novel, but obviously, the depth is a challenge here. But we are optimistic we will get this done."
Allen offered that assessment as preparations proceeded for two efforts to kill the well about a mile below the surface -- first, sealing it from above by pouring down mud and cement in an operation known as "static kill," and then closing it off from below by an intersecting relief well.
The static kill could begin Sunday, while the relief well may be ready for the "bottom kill" effort five to seven days afterward.
Allen said no anomalies or breaches have been detected at the well, and pressure is rising slowly -- signs that it is structurally sound. The static kill would not work if there's a leak.
The ship that would pour the mud and cement for the static kill, the Q4000, is on the scene and ready to go.
Workers had been forced to disconnect their equipment and retreat from the well site late last week, when Tropical Storm Bonnie loomed as a potential threat. But when Bonnie lost intensity, workers returned to the site over the weekend.
More than 2,000 miles away, in Boise, Idaho, a panel of federal judges were meeting Thursday to consider arguments on where litigation over the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and oil gusher should be consolidated. The Deepwater Horizon rig, off the coast of Louisiana, triggered the oil disaster when it exploded April 20, killing 11 people, and sank shortly afterward.
New Orleans and Houston, Texas, appear to be the favorites for the lawsuit sites because of their proximity to oil company offices and litigants surrounding the disaster.
BP estimates that in August, it will pay at least $60 million in advance to Gulf coast claimants who have lost income or net profit because of the oil spill, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
BP's incoming Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said Wednesday that the company has written $250 milllion in checks for claims.
Resolving the crisis is "the single highest priority for BP going forward," he told CNN's "American Morning."
"The only way you can build a reputation is not just by words but by action," said Dudley, whom BP named Tuesday to replace CEO Tony Hayward on October 1.
"I picked up that people think that ... once we cap this well, we're somehow going to pack up and disappear," he said. "That is certainly not the case. We've got a lot of clean-up to do. We've got claims facilities. We've got 35 of those around the Gulf coast."
Meanwhile, with no more oil flowing from the well, it's getting harder and harder to find oil on the surface, according to Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator.
He says crews flying over the Gulf have only been finding "light bands of oil," compared with the huge swaths when the well was still spewing.
But Doug Inkley, senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation, is skeptical that the situation is improving.
"We've swept the oil under the rug, if you will, because we've applied a tremendous amount of dispersants to it. What this means is that most of the oil has been dispersed throughout the entire water column, so that we're not seeing it on the surface. So really, it's been hidden from sight," Inkley told CNN's American Morning on Thursday.
"Humpty Dumpty has already fallen off the wall as soon as you spill it. You're never going to recover more than 5 or 10 percent of it in a deepwater spill like this, and that's an optimistic projection. So we have to recognize that most of it is still out there. And this spill is some 16, 17, 18 times larger than the wreck of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound. So, this is a much larger spill and we've learned from that spill, the previous spill, as well as many other oil spills, that the effects can last for decades," he said.
Inkley also expressed worry about the Gulf's wildlife.
"My biggest concern is the long-term effects on the food chain because the small organisms are eaten by the bigger organisms. It's still underwater and could have an effect for years, if not decades to come," he said.
But on Monday, Steve Murawski, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's chief scientist for fisheries, told CNN such a concern is, in some cases, unfounded.
"Oil does not necessarily bio-magnify into larger things," Murawski said. Fish, dolphins and other larger sea animals process and excrete oil. However, he said, consumers "need to be more careful with oysters and shrimp."
At the height of the spill, skimming vessels were collecting 25,000 barrels of oil a day.
But authorities are not quite ready to dismiss the 811 skimmers who have been used to collect surface oil. Allen says that won't happen at least until after the well has been sealed.
"We're not out of the woods yet. We still need a permanent kill," Allen said.
Boom used to try to stop oil from reaching shore is another matter. Zukunft said 11 million feet of boom have been arrayed throughout the Gulf.
He said that in coming days, authorities will consider removing some of the boom, in some cases by the fishing vessels that were employed to help lay it out. Zukunft said there are concerns that if storms develop this summer, the boom could be pushed into fragile marshland, damaging it.
But collecting the boom could take time. Zukunft said that if 60 miles of boom are recovered each day, the process could take through Labor Day. The recovered boom has to be decontaminated before it can be used again.
Then there's the question of oil that may be lurking under the surface. Allen noted it took weeks after the Deepwater Horizon explosion for oil to reach shore, and oil in the form of tar balls could continue to wash up on beaches for some time.
"When you put somewhere between 3 million and 5.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, I don't think anybody can understate the impact and the gravity of that situation," he said.